Thursday, 9 January 2014

All Quiet On The Westminster Front

As the members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery sat
sharpening their stilettoes yesterday for the first Prime Minister’s Questions
of 2014, they must have been acutely aware of the end of an era. Simon Hoggart, prince of Parliamentary sketch
writers, passed away last Sunday at the ridiculously young age of 67.

I’m a huge admirer of Hoggart’s style. I’ve frequently attempted to ape it, typically
in my dreams, but even my very best shots have all the flavour of a thrice-used
tea-bag. These days, with access to live
pictures, news blogs and the Twittersphere, we’ve no excuse for missing a
syllable of any debate, but we’ll never appreciate its underlying truths as we
did when laughing out loud at his witty, expertly-crafted vignettes.

Hoggart’s House of Commons was stuffed with fascinating
characters who lodged themselves in your memory like Tenniel’s Alice In Wonderland illustrations. There was the grandiloquent Sir Peter Tapsell,
Father of the House, whose every utterance was handed down amidst awed silence; Michael Fabricant, whose hair defied all
attempts to take it seriously; Nicholas
Soames, lampooned in a single paragraph as a bouncy castle and a barrage
balloon; and, of course, John Major, of
whom Hoggart wrote that seeing him govern was “like watching Edward
Scissorhands try to make balloon animals”.

His humour was rarely, if ever, vicious, probably the first
test most of us wannabes fail. Its
targets were usually happy to be part of the joke, in the classic tradition of
Morecambe and Wise’s Christmas victims.
Not always, though: John
Prescott, never with a chip on his shoulder when a plank is available, may have
felt ill-equipped to respond to his verbal shafts, and irritated that their source
was a bloke educated in his beloved Hull who’d gone over to the posh side. And
there did seem to be lasting antipathy with Tony Benn, whom Hoggart appeared to
regard as a national treasure, but of the sort best kept hidden.

So what would Hoggart have made of yesterday’s PMQs? As a fantasy escapade it didn’t quite measure
up to Alice In Wonderland. Instead, it had all the rip-roaring
excitement of Alice Goes To The Shops For
Some Milk.

Of course, no-one was expecting fisticuffs. News had broken of the death of Paul Goggins,
a colleague clearly highly regarded on all sides, and MPs’ genuine shock and
sadness had put them on their best behaviour.
Even so, exchanges were remarkably civilised. If this was the Punch and Judy Show, it was an
‘elf-n-safety approved version played out by sedated nuns, featuring feather dusters for
weapons, vegetarian sausages and a crocodile who’d forgotten to put in his
false teeth. Had the Speaker gone into
the dressing room beforehand to lecture the team captains on playing nice for
the cameras?

Ed Miliband’s opening question, on power distributors’ slow
response to storm-related blackouts, certainly prompted high-fives from those of
us who had “Lessons To Learn” on their “Cameron Buzz-Phrase Bingo” card. But surely Ed would now fillet Dave by bringing
up Environment Agency spending cuts? On
the Tory front bench, Owen Paterson nervously shuffled his Post-It notes. But no!
Instead we got some old mince about asking DEFRA to report on future flood
defence capability, which the PM effortlessly rendered harmless by declaring it a
jolly good idea.

It took Diane Abbott, summoning her super-power of annoying
the hell out of people, to inject some verve into proceedings. What, she enquired,
about landlords evicting, or refusing as tenants, housing benefit claimants who
were in work? What did the Prime
Minister have to say to these hard-working families?

“We’re cutting your taxes!” roared Dave triumphantly. (Well, I’m sure extra disposable income is always
welcome if you want to provide your own blankets at the night shelter.) Then, suddenly, the spirit of the Daily Mail, which hovers eternally over
the Tory benches, swooped down and took possession of him. “Housing benefit bill far too high! Payments of sixty thousand! Seventy thousand! Housing benefit used to buy
yachts! Alabaster bathroom furnishings!” Concerned colleagues dabbed at the corners of
his mouth with a Wet Wipe.

But, just as quickly as it had arisen, the passion
subsided. Ed returned to his feet and with
a confident flourish tore off his velvet glove, only to reveal a tissue-paper
fist. He brought up the spread of fixed-odds
betting terminals, which Dave pointed out had begun when Labour relaxed
gambling laws in 2001. “Our reforms in
2005 limited them to four per betting shop,” bleated Ed, trying desperately to
dig in his heels. But he was too close
to the edge. “They didn’t go far enough…..”
Off he hurtled into the abyss.

The session continued to pootle along in predictable
vein. Each time a Labour MP complained
about some dreadful state of affairs, the PM referred to his spreadsheet of “Crap
that happened between 1997 and 2010”, and told us it was all Labour’s fault. And each time a Tory MP mentioned a local
business that hadn’t yet been driven to its knees, the PM endorsed this as
evidence that the Government should stick to its plan of making everyone’s life
miserable.

We did make some discoveries. Despite spending cuts forcing the local police
to use public transport, crime in Bassetlaw is down by 27%, presumably because
the yobs can’t nick panda cars any more.
Dave seems to believe in climate change, possibly heralding a permanent drop
in the temperature of his relationship with the Environment Secretary. And it seems that Samantha Cameron’s late step-grandmother
was a codebreaker at Bletchley Park. Wonder what she would have made of Dave’s
current pet phrase “difficult decisions”?

As we checked our watches and looked around for the lady
with the choc ices, Scottish Independence came trundling into view, with the SNP’s Angus
Robertson inviting Dave to debate with Alex Salmond. A simple “No” would have sufficed, but I’m
sure we’re all grateful to Dave for advising us, “It’s all over, the Yes
campaign is toast, how can you haggis-munching separatists even get up in the
morning, looooo-zers.” I suspect SamCam Gran and her Bletchley Park colleagues would have pretty rapidly decoded that. “I’m feart.”

And so Dave departed, his expensively coiffed hair barely
ruffled. We all know what happens to New
Year resolutions, so no doubt next week the two party leaders will return to
hitting each other with giant frying pans in a febrile atmosphere. The non-combative approach certainly doesn’t
work to Labour’s advantage, since it seems to involve Ed using up all his
questions on topics such as flower-arranging, but still gives Dave free rein to
lambast Labour for all the ills of the world.
It might be smart to stop scoring own-goals, too.

As for Simon Hoggart, even during yesterday’s phony war I’m
sure he’d have identified several quirky moments to fashion into an
entertaining narrative. If you have
imagination of that calibre, you can count on it when it matters. Then he’d have padded off to a familiar
restaurant for an agreeable lunch. Not
quite the same as me slouching off to the kitchen for a Cup-a-Soup and Heinz
Ravioli on toast. Still, it gives me
something to aspire to, doesn’t it?

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I'm a writer who returned to Scotland in 2013 after 30+ years in the Home Counties. If you enjoy reading my ramblings, please return often and recommend me to your friends on Twitter, Facebook and Planet Earth. That way someone may one day give me money to do this sort of thing, which would be nice.
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